The following notice has been received from Cheshire East Council. Please note the consultation finishes on 23rd May 2012:

Introduction

People of all ages use their libraries in many different ways, to learn new things, take part in activities and enjoy the many books, DVDs and other resources available.

Cheshire East provides Mobile Libraries as part of its provision to people living in more rural areas which are not directly served by a static (building based) library.

However, the Council has to make significant savings over the coming years and therefore we need to find different ways of delivering services in more cost effective ways.

The mobile library service

There are currently three mobile libraries in the fleet. Between them they make 254 stops at 130 communities, calling at each stop fortnightly. This does not take into account stops at pre-school settings and elderly people’s homes. The duration of stops ranges from 10 minutes to 4 hours.

Proposal for the future

To help meet required savings the council has to make, it is proposed that mobile library stops are removed from locations that are within 2 miles of a static library.

For all remaining stops, we propose to reduce the frequency of mobile library visits from two weekly to three weekly and select a central location for the stop in each village.

The Mobile Library would visit each stop on a regular day and time, once every three weeks in line with the three week loan period operating in Cheshire East static libraries.

In order for the new schedules to work most efficiently the current day, time and location of mobile stops in any village may need to change.

The proposal would reduce the fleet of operational mobile library vehicles from three to one.

We would aim to offer the Books on Wheels service that currently supports individuals who cannot get to a library to those residents who can no longer physically access library services.

We will be contacting all Elderly Persons Homes (EPHs) and pre-school settings that will be affected by this proposal to discuss alternative provision.

An annual financial saving of £95,000 would be achieved by this proposal.